Magento Design Terminologies Day 1 1.

. Website and Store and store view (a) Websites A website is a collection of stores that share the same customer and order information as well as shopping cart. (b) Store A store is a collection of store views. (c) Store view

2. Interface - Interface is a collection of themes that determines the visual output and frontend functionalities of your store. An interface can be assign in any level (website or store view). (a) Web site level declaration all store will inherits the same design (b) Store view declaration We can assign unique design for each store

3. Themes - A theme is any combination of layout, template, locale and/or skin file(s) that create the visual experience of your store. Magento themes can load multiple at once. (a) Default theme Every interface come with a default theme, which is the main them of an interface. This will load as default. (b) Non-default theme A non-default can contain as many or as little theme files as your needs. Eg. We can use this for temporary seasonal design rather than creating entire theme. A theme consists of any or all of the following: (a) Layout (located in app/design/frontend/your_interface/your_theme/layout/) These are the basic XML files that define the block structure, control META information and page encoding (b) Templates (app/design/frontend/interface/theme/template) PHTML files that contain (X)HTML , PHP for view (c) Locale (app/design/frontend/interface/theme/locale) Simple text documents organized on a per language basis that contain translations for a store copy. (d) Skins (skin/frontend/interface/theme/) These are block specific Js, CSS and image files that compliment your (X)HTML

4. Blocks - Magento uses blocks to differentiate between the various components of its functionality, with the idea that this makes it easier. (a) Structural Block Only for maintain the visual hierarchy of the page such as header, left column, main column and footer. (b) Content Block Display the generated (X)HTML provided by the Magento for any given feature at Structural block. Eg. Category list, mini cart, search, etc.

Unique aspects of Magento Theme 1. 2. 3. 4. Maximum ability to customize Magento Support for multiple concurrent themes They offer an uninterrupted workflow They minimize debugging time for errors

Theme hierarchy in Magento: the fallback pattern